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"Hutchins is an unsentimental and compassionate creator of vivid characters, a master aphorist ('Artists are always the Johnny Appleseeds of gentrification') and an expert architect of set pieces... [A] charming, warmhearted, and thought-provoking novel."

—New York Times Book Review

“The realistic manner in which Hutchins depicts the not-depressed, yet not-joyful way Neill goes through (a pretty interesting) life will strike a chord with many readers. But at the end of the day, it's the slow revelation of Neill's vibrantly beating heart (despite all his efforts to stay detached!) and his romantic, leap-of-faith-taking soul that will surprise, delight, and leave your own heart buoyant and brimming by the last page.”

—Redbook

One of the most humane (not to mention moving and hilarious) stories I've read in a long time.”

—Interview

“A wistful, funny debut.”

—People

"What makes a man? In this terrific debut novel, A Working Theory of Love, emotionally adrift divorcé Neill Bassett Jr. is trying to build the world's first sentient computer program. After inputting 20 years of his late father's diaries, he holds conversations with a pixelated personality that seems just like his dad—discussing his life, his childhood, and his current romantic woes. Throughout, Hutchins hits that sweet spot where humor and melancholy comfortably coexist."

—Entertainment Weekly

"In quick, artful strokes, the various characters in a wide cast are memorably drawn and entwined in Neill's personal saga. Even the would-be intelligent machine, "Dr. Bassett," becomes such a vivid character that questions of its mortality, not just its human dimensions, are raised... A terrific debut, an intriguing, original take on family and friendship, lust and longing, grief and forgiveness."

—Associated Press

"Touching and extremely funny, Neill Bassett is a disenchanted bachelor for the Noughties generation. Brilliantly achieved."

—GQ

"Tremendous, big, clever ... Every once in a while a novel comes along and speaks to a generation ... Hutchins expertly charts the terrain of love, and what it means to fall, and fall hard."

—Guardian

“I am very happy to say that this book made me very sad, and also very happy—happy to have the witty, loving and unsentimental companionship of such a knowing loneliness. A smart and wonderful book with a real—a complicated and unpredictable—heart.”

—Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances

“Scott Hutchins’s wonderful new novel is right on the border of what is possible: a computer is programmed to be the reincarnation of the narrator’s dead father, and the narrator, a charming thirty-something American, learns what it is to be human and to love. The book is brilliantly observant about the way we live now, and its comic and haunting story will stay lodged in the reader’s memory.”

—Charles Baxter, author of The Feast of Love

“It takes a genius, a supercomputer, a disembodied voice and a man who’s stopped believing to create A Working Theory of Love. Original, wise, full of serious thinking, serious fun, and the shock of the new, this book is astonishing.”

—Adam Johnson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

“Scott Hutchins is a wonderfully original new voice, and A Working Theory of Love reads like what would happen if Walker Percy’s moviegoer woke up as a computer programmer in sexually ‘enlightened’ San Francisco. It’s about love in all its forms: between man and woman, man and parent, man and city, and man and machine.”

—Eric Puchner, author of Model Home

“SF’s most exciting new novelist.”

—Huffington Post

“Can a man resurrect his father by downloading his diaries into a super-computer? Can he also resurrect his love life after a sudden divorce, months after the honeymoon? Can the author weave a mesmerizing tale of redemption? You bet!”

—Sacramento Bee

"A Working Theory of Love is a refreshing exploration of how the many relationships every person has can shape who we are. It is a reflection on failure, fear, grief, hope, and, of course, love. Lovers, friends, family, coworkers, and even the city in which one lives: Hutchins demonstrates what these connections can mean in our search for fulfillment."

—ZYZZYVA

“I have a feeling A Working Theory of Love will be among the most talked-about novels this season… Please, readers, don’t miss this one.”

—Constant Reader

“First-time novelist Hutchins manages to address weighty questions (e.g., what makes us human?) without ever losing his sly sense of humor in this witty, insightful Silicon Valley comedy of manners.”

—Library Journal

“Compelling, strange, but very endearing.”

—The Rumpus

"While the artificial-intelligence conceit feels utterly unique in this literary fiction context, Neill himself is universal in his specificity... Hutchins' true triumph, however, lies within his novel's convergence of language and pacing. The story he's chosen to tell, despite flirting with the fantastical, reveals no outrageous twists, nor dramatic revelations, yet he steadily builds tension through his linguistic choices. In other words, life's realistic detours are described in such a way as to heighten their relevance."

—New City

—Independent

"[A] must-read debut novel. [A Working Theory of Love] is in some ways is a kind of Nick Hornby-ish take on Richard Powers' computer classic, Galatea 2.2... this novel thwarts the reader's expectations at every turn, blurring the line between man, memory, and machine."

—Details

"A deftly managed novel about the ways we move on and the ways we don't, the stock we put in memory and language, and the incompetent ways that we strive to love each other."

—Christian Science Monitor

"The idea of a grown man receiving closure from a supercomputer acting as his father sounds more comical than poignant, but readers will be unable to put the book down as the conversations between man and machine grow more intimate, and Neill is forced to deal with the pain of his father's suicide. Questions about the nature of humanity and love are expertly explored in this impressive debut."

—BookPage

"Ultimately, A Working Theory of Love examines, quite successfully, our semi-delusional approach to interpersonal relationships and contemplates whether the world comes down on the side of seem or be—or if it remains negotiated in the space in between."

—BOMB Magazine

"Inventive, intelligent and sometimes hilarious... One of the pleasures here is Hutchins' terrific grasp of the zeitgeist - the intellectual energies, cultural landscapes and characters of the Bay Area... A Working History of Love revels in these big questions: Are humans more like computers than we think? Is the experience of love all chemicals and projection? Is human connection an illusion - a kind of cosmic Turing test in which it's only necessary to fool a few people some of the time?"